With talks of paradigm shifts away from print to online, how do you find Sneaker Freaker re-inventing and re-positioning itself?
Funnily enough, the general shift away from print to online has only strengthened the case for Sneaker Freaker. Brands love the magazine because amongst all our positive attributes, it’s a tangible product with a long shelf-life. We make product look good and it stimulates desire. Since we only produce three magazines a year, it’s also an event each time it comes out, all of which means the mag is still in a very strong position, touch wood. Given there are thousands of blogs out there looking to break sneaker/streetwear news every day, we have to work closely with brands to stay one huge step ahead. I’m committed to delivering not just exclusive stories which we do on the regular but also supporting new ideas and what is right. At the end of the day, Sneaker Freaker is the conduit between brands and kids, so I feel like we’re trying to keep things honest at some level. We keep the magazine pure. There’s no detours into film and music or gaming stuff just so we could diversify our advertisers. I also love the fact that we have consistently given women a chance to shine in a very male dominated industry, and I have to thank Mafia on staff here who has really pushed this along. The massive feature is another area that we excel at, which means telling a story in the most comprehensive way. It’s self indulgent in some ways but it means we are unlike any other magazine out there which is what we need to be to survive and prosper. The feature on ACG, the Steve Van Doren interview and the history of Airwalk were a few pieces that really stand out. Nobody reads 10,000 words online, but they do in traditional print, which is one of the reasons why Vanity Fair is my favorite magazine.
Extensive online reading is something that few will ever get accustomed to or else it just won’t be all that convenient for the time being. I usually disagree with many who ask me if the Internet is the death of print. Clearly we aren’t putting enough weight into the positives of print, albeit, print has seen its better days behind hit. The whole shift from print to online has gotten pretty messy for some especially those occupied by traditionalists of the old guard. While the likes of you and I seem well-equipped, I’m not so sure about the others which is a topic in itself.
If you look at how newspapers are adapting to the digital world, the progression is rather depressing, as they immediately head downmarket and slut it out with celeb gossip and fluffy pap. They know they need to move with the times but from what I’ve seen, the immediate reaction by most traditional media is to slash costs by replacing senior writers with standard information lifted from a wire service. I think that logic is flawed. There is still a demand for traditional print, but the problem is that they are so thin and lame now that people resent buying them as they’re a shadow of their former selves. I also think magazines are making a terrible mistake whittling down their content as if they were writing a 50 word blog. I don’t want 50 abbreviated words on why someone is cool. I want an opinion and a substantial conversation and that’s why magazines are struggling with this change in the way information is compressed. You never learn anything reading some magazines anymore, and some only take about half an hour to go from cover to cover.
In regards to Issue 15 which is hitting newsstands as we speak, could you tell us a little more about your upcoming issue? What sort of things can we expect? I hear there’s some crazy stuff going on with the cover.
The cover looks cool! We made a few hundred with the Yeezy soles on them and then screen printed them with a glow-in-the-dark ink. They’ve almost sold out now but we have a few left for internet customers. I couldn’t really compete with Complex’s awesome Yeezy feature so I decided to devote a nice chunk of Issue 15 to the world of luxury kicks including Vuitton, Prada, Gucci, Pierre Hardy and Lanvin, not to mention SLVR, McQueen and Jeremy Scott. These brands are not known for their extroverted marketing, but with a lot of help from Lady Claw Money, Gabriella from Mama, Tee at Trashbags and Black Rainbow in Paris, we were able to put together a pretty strong feature on the top end of town. If we’d done that two or three years ago, it might have seemed absurd and elitist to our core audience, but with Kanye and everything, this topic deserved serious examination.
With Sneaker Freaker launching in Spanish a while back, any other plans for other languages and formats? Any final things you’d like to say?
Yeah, we have a great partner in Spain who is translating the magazine and doing a great job. It’s a hoot to get the Spanish version back and see how it looks but I haven’t the foggiest what they make of my jokes and sneaker banter. Whilst I would love to add another language to our portfolio, we shall see how things progress and there are no plans afoot at this point. We are the first Australian magazine to be translated into a foreign language and it’s just one of the many things that have happened along the way that is rather odd about Sneaker Freaker. Sometimes you just have to laugh. I love the reaction when I tell people what I do for a job.
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